


In the Kingdom of Children

by boombashkas



Series: to kiss your honey-sweet eyes [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Baby Royals, Crushes, Introspection, M/M, Princes & Princesses, Royal Children, Royalty, Secret Crush, Sibling Bonding, Thalia worries about a lot of things, Thalia's POV, They're all friends, Unrequited Crush, Wholesome Sibling Dynamic, i genuinely dont know how else to tag it lol, jason is an nervous little child, percy is a little hellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 11:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombashkas/pseuds/boombashkas
Summary: “I always used to admire you from afar, even when we were young children. You were so vibrant, so outspoken. No one could tell you no. I wanted very badly to be friends.”“Really?”Jason nods, then pushes his hair back, almost shyly. “I knew since I was very little that we were betrothed, but even if I didn’t, I think I would have felt the same way. I was forever trying to get your attention.” He ducks his head, and now his cheeks are a dusty pink. “But you never looked my way twice.”The color is so soft against his skin, Percy wants to stroke it. “Oh?”Jason shakes his head, then glances up at him once. “You were much more interested in being friends with Thalia than me.”Even through the haze in his head, Percy can pull out memories from a distant time. “She used to climb trees with me and my siblings,” he remembers suddenly. “And her dress would be muddied, and she would be scolded, but she didn’t care.”Jason nods. “That sounds like Thalia.”





	In the Kingdom of Children

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically what you could classify as a prequel fic, a good amount of time before the first one, and from Thalia's POV. i thought this would be a good way, other than the letters, to establish everyone's base-level relationships with each other, and anyway it was really fun to write lol. for reasons, i'm going to put this before the letter fic in the sequence of the series, so i'm sorry for any confusion!  
> just as a heads-up, it's all v mild and not that bad but there's some depressing lines of thought in the beginning of the fic, and there's a whole lot of Bad Parenting, so if you don't want to read that, it's totally fine, this has basically no bearing on the actual storyline of the upcoming fics anyway!  
> i hope you like it!!

The children play underneath the grove of apple trees, pushing and tumbling through the dewy grass, running around the tree trunks, pulling at hair and clothes, complaining as they laughed, and arguing in giggles. There are eight of them, and they’ve divided themselves roughly into two groups: the ones that think they were already grown up, and the ones that are enjoying themselves. 

Their play is rough, their shouts loud and unrestrained. The only indications that they’re royals are their expensive clothes, which are being unceremoniously covered in dirt and grass stains, and the group of fretful nursemaids lingering close by, admonishments on their tongues. 

But even if they misbehave a little, it’s alright. Poking and pinching and wrestling with each other, those are the things everyone expects young children to do. Not sit stiff and still under a canopy in a stuffy dress and a monstrosity of a coiffure, while adults around you delicately sip their ghastly tea and talk about who killed who and who was just about to kill who and who could not be allowed to kill who.

Yes, Thalia is bitter. But then, she thinks she has every right to be.

The canopy above her does nothing to protect her from the harsh heat of the Atlantean sun. Thalia and her family have only been here four days, and already she can see her parents turning golden. She wonders if they could turn as brown as the Atlanteans, given enough time.

Despite the heat, Thalia has been, as usual, packed into the most unbearable dress her stepmother could find. She suspects it’s punishment for sneaking off with the other children the day before to climb trees and swim in the nearby pond in her best clothes.

Her father had been stoically disappointed as usual, but her stepmother had been furious. “If this is how a crown princess behaves,” she had hissed angrily at her while the mud and leaves were being scrubbed off of Thalia’s legs, “what difference is there between her and the common kitchenmaid cooking her meals?”

“The kitchenmaid is happier,” Thalia had said.

She doesn’t know why her parents are so fanatical about the idea of a crown princess acting like a miniature queen. Crown Princess Bianca of the Kingdom of Hades is allowed to play as she likes, whenever she likes, with whomever she likes. Granted, she’s only five years old while Thalia is twelve, but Thalia knows for a fact that she wasn’t allowed to play like that when _she_ was five years old. She was learning how to sit without slouching, how to enunciate properly, how to curtsy.

“Princess Bianca is wise beyond her years,” is always her father’s favored retort. “Yes, she plays with the children, but she enjoys reading and is excelling in all her lessons, and they say she’s so pleasant to everyone, she will make a great diplomat one day. And she already knows all the languages of her kingdom, and at such a young age!”

He always seems to forget that Thalia knows all the languages of her country as well, she enjoys reading, and she can get along with people if she sets her mind to it. But she knows that hardly matters to him, not when she has so many ‘flaws’ he has an eagle eye on.

She isn’t envious of Princess Bianca, though. That would be extremely immature of her. And she certainly isn’t envious of Crown Prince Triton, the oldest prince of Atlantis. He is twelve years her senior, married, with a child due to be born soon, one who will secure the throne of Atlantis someday. But he’s nothing like her, or even like Princess Bianca. His list of accomplishments is almost as tall as he is, and while he’s always polite to her, there’s something about him she doesn’t quite like. Not to mention, conversation with him is duller than watching grass grow.

When she sees Prince Triton, she sees a terrible bore. But when her parents see Prince Triton, they see the paragon of an heir to the crown. If there’s a reason Thalia dislikes their visits to Atlantis – and she otherwise quite enjoys them, actually – it’s because when they return to Olympus, all she hears from her parents for the next few weeks are praises and admirations of Prince Triton, in a transparent attempt to somehow push Thalia into turning into an Olympian version of him. 

Thalia likes herself just fine. Why does everyone want so badly for her to change her mind about that?

Just this morning, her stepmother had denied her cutting her hair shorter for the fiftieth time this week, even though it was almost to her waist, and had wrestled it into an unnecessarily elaborate updo, finished off with the wedging in of the symbolic circlet that she wore in these sorts of events or ceremonies instead of her bulky gem-studded gold coronet.

“We have to look our best for the few weeks we are here,” she had told Thalia this morning as she had slapped some color onto her cheeks. “Appearance matters.”

“What difference does it make?” Thalia had said, trying to squirm away from her. “They’re already giving their Prince Percy to us, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything until pen touches paper. Until then, they can change their mind whenever they want. We don’t want that, do we?”

Thalia certainly didn’t. She still didn’t understand why it mattered so much to her parents – something something war something something peace – but she knew why it was important to her: because if Prince Percy didn’t end up marrying Jason when he grew up, Jason would be heartbroken. 

Even now, her six-year-old brother sits close to her on the outdoor settee, his clammy hand firmly planted in her palm, his body cuddled into her side. He isn’t saying anything to her, though. His eyes are fixed, wide and blue, on the children, his mouth half-open in focus. 

Jason knows he is engaged to one day be married to Prince Percy. Or, at least, he has some vague understanding of the concept. Thalia isn’t sure if his admiration of Prince Percy started before his discovery of the fact, or after. All she knows is that it sparked up inside of him one day, and it hasn’t flickered since.

This visit is his fourth time in Atlantis, as for the first two years of his life, he and Thalia would stay back in Olympus with their minders and their parents would make the journey to meet the royal family of Atlantis and, occasionally, the royal family of Hades. While Jason isn’t a particularly loud child in the first place, he’s always very quiet during these visits, even though he’s good friends with the Hadean royal children, especially little Prince Nico, and the older Atlantean children find him precocious and charming too.

But when Prince Percy walks in the room – and he does it with the arrogant air of a boy king and not the tenth child of ten – all Jason does is sit, stare, and nervously fidget with his clothes. Thalia enjoys watching him when he’s like that. It’s remarkable how her little brother has embraced and understood love so easily at the young age of six, and she still hasn’t the faintest clue what it means.

Until five minutes ago, Jason had been skipping around with the other children, although he hadn’t been acting as truly feral as the rest. Then Prince Percy had walked up from where he had been playing with his friends Annabeth and Grover inside the castle, and Jason had instantly run to Thalia and climbed up on the sofa next to her. And there he still sits, staring at Prince Percy chase after the other children. 

Prince Percy is, out of all the children, the loudest. She knows he probably thinks he has to scream his head off at every opportunity just to be heard among all his scores of siblings, but she hopes he learns to quiet down before he moves to Olympus to live with them, because otherwise she will probably have to have him beheaded. 

But, at the same time, she has always admired the complete and uncontrollable rowdiness of him. He’s probably been told to quiet down ten times by his mother in the past half hour, and his nursemaid has had to pull him off his siblings twice. She’s not sure, but she thinks he might have been trying to feed Princess Kymopoleia a snail.

She also notices, as she watches alongside her baby brother, that despite his brash loudness, Prince Percy also keeps holding little Princess Hazel’s hand and pulling her into the games the older ones are playing. He brings his mother a beautiful pink flower, clutched in his chubby fingers. He lets Princess Kymopoleia feed him a caterpillar in revenge.

And, besides all that, she knows he makes an excellent playmate, despite the age difference between her and him. He climbed the tree with her yesterday, and showed her the giant rock next to the pool that they had jumped off of. They make a good team, whenever she’s been able to play games with them, and even though he’s never made particular notice of Jason, he always asks Thalia if her little brother would like to play with them. 

The answer is, sadly, always no.

“Thalia,” Jason whispers. 

Thalia just barely stops herself from jumping. “What?”

“Will you help me?” he asks, still whispering. He’s looking at her with those gigantic blue eyes, and shuffling backwards and forwards in his seat nervously, his booted feet dangling off the edge of the sofa.

“Help you with what?” she asks, just as quietly.

He hesitates, then sends a quick glance towards the playing children. Thalia follows his gaze; Prince Percy has Prince Bellerophon pinned to the ground and is trying to stuff dirt in his mouth while Princess Bianca and Prince Nico cheer him on.

“I want to pick a flower,” Jason says. He must really be nervous, because his lisp has made a reappearance after months of lessons fixing it. He’s fumbling nervously with his hands, and now he won’t even meet her eyes. 

The way he trips over his words makes her heart hurt. She hugs him. “Of course we can. Which one do you want?”

He points a stubby finger at the bush with the pink flowers, one of which Percy had given to his mother a few minutes ago. Thalia can see where he got the inspiration.

“Who do you want to give it to?” Thalia says, half-expecting him to say it’s for her.

Instead, he turns bright red.

“Oh,” she says, then laughs.

It instantly sets off what she likes to call his embarrassment response. He shoves his head in his hands and then his head into Thalia’s chest, whining all the while. Thalia laughs and tries to make sure none of the adults notice them making a ruckus. 

“Okay,” she says, grabbing him by the middle and lifting him up as she gets off the sofa. “Come on, let’s get that flower for Prince Percy.”

Jason’s response to this is to bend down double and try to hide his little face in his little stomach. It doesn’t work, but it definitely looks adorable.

Thalia takes his hand and is only steps away from the canopy when her stepmother’s voice rings out across the grounds. “Sweetheart,” she says, her voice anything but sweet, “Where are you going?”

Thalia steels herself, then turns around. Three kings, three queens and the five oldest Atlantean princes and princess; they’re all staring at her.

“Prince Jason wants to pick some flowers,” she says, as dully as possible. She knows she’ll get a talking-to later. For some reason, her stepmother believes she should make her voice “brighter and not so deep” when she talks. Thalia doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s only twelve. Her stepmother’s voice is definitely deeper than Thalia’s.

“Oh?” her stepmother says. She puts down the tiny cake she was about to bite into and leans down towards Jason. “Is that right, my little prince?” she says in a saccharine voice.

Jason is wringing his embroidered tunic in his other hand. “I only want one,” he mumbles, shy under all the attention.

The adults instantly soften and start to coo. Thalia doesn’t understand why they think it’s alright to make strange noises at everything the younger children do. Don’t they know how annoying and embarrassing it is?

“Well, alright then,” her stepmother says. She pinches Jason’s cheek. “If our Jason wants it, so be it.”

Jason smiles at her brightly, baby teeth on display. Their stepmother thinks Thalia is devilspawn, but Jason is her favorite. And that means, sadly, that Jason loves her too.

Thalia knows she shouldn’t wish the opposite on her little brother. He deserves to have a mother who loves him, even if she isn’t his real mother. Even if she would love him less if he wasn’t a prince.

“Can we go, then?” Thalia asks, trying not to sound too irritated.

“Of course,” her stepmother says, then winks at Jason. “Bring me back a flower, won’t you?”

“Okay!” Jason beams.

“And,” King Poseidon adds suddenly, “if Prince Jason feels so inclined, he could perhaps join Prince Percy in his…” he sends a glance to where his youngest son is dangling from a tree branch his nannies are trying desperately to pull him off of, “games.”

“Princess Thalia as well,” Queen Sally says, smiling at Thalia, “I’m sure our conversations sound lifeless and bland, with the children jumping about so close by. It would be refreshing for Your Highnesses to spend some time with them. Wouldn’t you agree, dear?” she asks her husband.

“Oh, yes,” he nods. “I believe Prince Theseus and Prince Sciron are around your age, Your Highness,” he says to Thalia. “They are very friendly boys, you would enjoy yourself.”

Thalia blinks at the two of them, then blinks at her parents, who blink at each other. There’s a moment too long of hesitance, and then her father recovers.

“That’s very kind of you, Your Majesties,” he says to the Atlantean King and Queen, “Unfortunately, Princess Thalia is of a much more reticent nature, and she is quite keen to learn more about the political intricacies of our three nations. I think she would prefer it if she could sit with us for today.” He turns to Thalia. “Wouldn’t you, Princess Thalia?”

The only thing keeping Thalia from yanking off her circlet and throwing it in her father’s face is Jason’s little hand in hers. “Yes,” she says automatically.

“Well, alright,” King Poseidon says, his smile blinding white in his tanned face, “We will see you soon then, Your Highness.”

Thalia bows to him and then leads Jason away. She pretends not to notice Queen Sally looking at her in concern.

Jason only keeps hold of her hand for a few steps, then drops it and makes a beeline for the flowers. He’s crouched down unsteadily in front of the ones he wants when Thalia walks up and kneels down carefully next to him.

“Oh, well, look at that,” she says, “I thought you wanted _one_ flower?”

Jason grins up at her, his tiny palms cupped, a cloud of bright pink between them. “Remember when we went to El-sum?” he asks excitedly. “They made me a crown! Of flowers!” He tugs his hands up in enthusiasm, making the flowers avalanche to the ground. “Can we make one?”

His voice is reaching that whistle pitch it gets to when he’s so cheerful he can’t stand still. “In Elysium?” Thalia asks, picking up the dropped flowers. “I’m not sure how to do that.”

He instantly deflates. “Oh.”

Thalia stifles a laugh. “But I’ll learn for you. And tomorrow, I’ll teach you how to make one for Prince Percy. How about that?”

His plump cheeks flush. “Shh!” he whispers frantically. “He’ll hear you!”

Thalia does laugh this time. She bundles him up in her arms and kisses his warm cheek. “It’s okay even if he does. It’ll just make him happy to know you like him so much.”

Jason clamps a hand on her mouth. “ _Shh_!” he practically shouts. “He can _hear_ you!”

She takes his hand off, laughing, then kisses it. “Come on,” she says, standing up. “You can give him the flowers first, and then you can ask him if you can set them in his hair and behind his ears. It’ll still look like a crown then, won’t it?”

“His hair…?” Jason says uncertainly, touching the top of his downy head, “And his ears…?”

“Right here,” Thalia says, patting the soft skin behind his ear, “And right _here_!” she adds, moving her fingers down to tickle his neck.

He laughs in a shriek, contorting himself away from her, and then gasps dramatically as soon as he’s free. “Don’t!” he whispers loudly, his face stricken. “I’ll pee!”

Thalia laughs. “What?”

“I’ll pee if you tickle me!” he pats his belly as if for confirmation. “Don’t do it!”

Thalia just laughs harder, bending over double. “Jason, that happened _one_ time! It doesn’t mean it’ll happen _every_ time.”

“No!” Jason squeals, slapping her hands away. “No one tickles me.”

“No?” Thalia grins. “What about Prince Percy?”

That makes Jason pause. “If Prince Percy does it,” he decides finally, “it’s okay. But _only_ Prince Percy!” he says loudly over Thalia’s laughter.

“You might actually have to see if that turns out to be true one day.” She takes his hand. “Alright, come on.”

They walk towards the apple grove. Three of the Atlantean princes sit under the shade of a large tree, talking amongst themselves, eating what looks like – judging from the apple cores around them – their fourth or fifth apples each. The youngest of the three still has dirt around his mouth. The rest of the children, Prince Percy included, play a few feet away, kicking a ball around. As Thalia and Jason watch, Prince Percy is shoved to the ground by the diminutive three-year-old Prince Nico, who then plants a small foot on Prince Percy’s chest and roars his victory.

He’s mid-roar – and roaring even louder over Princess Bianca’s shouts to quiet down – when he spots Thalia and Jason approaching. “Prince Jason!” he screams, jumping off of Percy. He runs up to them and squeezes Jason’s waist in a big hug. “You’re back!”

The only prince of the Kingdom of Hades adores Jason just as much as he does Percy, but Jason seems to be the only one getting any respect out of it. Thalia can’t help but revel in this knowledge.

“Hello, Prince Nico,” Jason says, clutching his handful of flowers close to his chest. “Can you stop hugging me please? You’ll ruin my flowers.”

“Your what?” Prince Nico lets go of Jason and blinks down at the flowers. 

The youngest Hadean child, Princess Hazel, bounces next to her brother and sticks her little nose into Jason’s palm unabashedly. “Yum!” she shouts, which Thalia isn’t sure is the appropriate emotion for flowers.

“They’re so pretty,” Princess Bianca says. “Are they freesias?”

“They are,” Thalia says, impressed. Princess Bianca beams at her. Thalia’s personal feelings about the unequal expectations from different crown princesses aside, she likes Princess Bianca quite a lot. Even though she’s only five, she talks to Thalia like an age-mate, and plays with her like a younger sister. Thalia already knows what when they get older, and maybe even when they’re queens, they’ll be good friends.

“I picked them myself,” Jason says. He’s starting to flush again and he’s resolutely not looking in the direction of Prince Percy, who, along with his sister, is skipping up to the group.

“Go on, Jason,” Thalia says encouragingly, squeezing his hand.

Jason’s face is pinker than the flowers. Slowly, he rotates himself towards Prince Percy, eyes trained to the ground. “Um,” he says, “I –”

“Do you want to play with us, Prince Jason?” Prince Percy interrupts him brightly, startling Jason, “We need one person for my and Kym’s team and Bianca – uh, _Princess_ Bianca – says you’re good at sports.”

Jason looks dumbfounded at having been acknowledged. Thalia tries to remember if he and Prince Percy have ever even talked before, but to her shock and delight, she realizes this might be the first time Prince Percy has looked Jason’s way. 

“I don’t,” he stammers, “I’m –”

“Prince Percy,” Princess Bianca says, hands on her hips, “If _I_ say Prince Jason is good at this game, that means _I_ get to have him on my team.”

“Nuh-uh,” Princess Kymopoleia says instantly, “You _already_ have three people on your team.”

“We have _Hazel_! She’s only _two_ , she doesn’t count!”

“Hazel can play,” Prince Nico says, looking at Princess Bianca like she’s murdered someone.

“No, this is okay!” Prince Percy says in excitement, “If Hazel isn’t playing, we can ask _Annabeth_! She’s in the castle with her mom right now.”

“No, she’s too good at it,” Princess Kym says, folding her arms. “She’ll just keep the ball with herself the whole time like she always does when we play with her. It won’t be fun.”

“It’s _always_ fun with Annabeth.” Prince Percy pushes his sister. “Don’t be _mean_.”

“Don’t _push_ me!” she cries, pushing him back, almost into Princess Hazel, who’s sitting on the ground trying to stuff a flower into her nose. 

“Don’t step on Hazel!” Prince Nico screeches, punching Prince Percy in the stomach.

“Nico!” Princess Bianca cries in horror, tackling him to the ground.

Jason and Thalia watch the five children descend into chaos. Thalia sighs and looks at Jason. The flowers are crumpled and damp in Jason’s clammy fists but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s looking at Thalia with a big toothy grin.

“Prince Percy wants me to be on his team!” he whispers excitedly.

Prince Percy is pinching Princess Kym’s arms hard. Princess Kym is trying to claw his eyes out. “Jason,” Thalia says, “Are you sure about liking Prince Percy? Somehow I have the feeling you’ll have to be the smart one between the two of you.”

Jason isn’t listening. “He wants me to be on his team,” he says, smiling widely, watching Prince Percy get pummeled by his sister and Prince Nico at the same time.

It would be a horrifying scene, if Jason didn’t light it up with his smile. Thalia can’t help it. She scoops him up in her arms and kisses his forehead, which always smells warm and milky. “Yes, he does,” she says, matching his grin with her own. “Now let’s go get him some new flowers, shall we? Maybe by the time we come back, someone will remind your Prince Percy not to fight in front of his friends _with_ his friends _over_ his friends.”

They walk away, Jason wobbling in her arms and staring over her shoulder at the murderous little royals with a big smile on his face.

~*~

That night, Jason bursts into the rooms the Atlantean royal family has given to Thalia for the duration of their stay, runs across the bedroom to climb into her giant bed with her and then jumps up and down on it in his nightclothes while he tells her how he spent the rest of his evening. It’s all quite unnecessary, because Thalia was there with him the whole time, but it’s Jason so she lets him.

“And then – and then,” he says gleefully, his voice hitching with his jumps, “I got a _new_ flower, and this one was even prettier than the other ones, and it was _bigger_ too, and I got it for him and then I went to him and the others were all playing with each other and his friend Ann-beth was there too, and she’s _really_ nice, I _really_ like her, and I went to him and I said,” here he stops jumping and acts it out, holding out one hand like he’s holding out the flower, deepening his voice, “’This is for you, Prince Percy’,” he bursts into laughter and starts jumping again, “just like I _practiced_! And it was all _okay_! I was _so_ scared but then he took it and he said he _loved_ those kinds of flowers and they smelled like sweets and I said that’s why _I_ like them _too_ and then _he_ said do you want to play with us and I really, _really_ wanted to but I was feeling really, _really_ hot and also his new friend Ann-beth is kind of scary –”

“I thought you said she was nice,” Thalia laughs, trying to grab his hands and tug him closer to cuddle.

“She is!” he cries out, jumping so high she’s scared he’ll fall off, “She’s _so_ nice! But she’s scary too! Like Emp-or Hades is nice but scary, even though Nico says that’s the way kings are meant to be, but I don’t know what Nico knows about it, he’s only three and he’s not going to be king anyway, so –” he stops jumping, his little brow furrowing in confusion. “I was saying something else.”

Thalia muffles her laughter into a pillow. “Prince Percy’s friend Annabeth is scary.”

“ _Yes_!” he yells, then starts jumping again, tiny fists waving in the air, “She’s _so_ nice but she’s a little scary too and I was feeling strange and all hot and sparkly so I said no I’ll just watch you and then!” He jumps hard, the bed denting from his weight. “ _Then_! Prince Percy said _no I wanted you on my team_!” He throws back his head and laughs in delight.

Thalia takes her chance. She grabs him and hoists him into her lap so she can start kissing his sweet-smelling forehead and his chubby cheeks. “And then?” she asks as he laughs in her lap.

“And _then_!” he screams, practically in her ear, “I said it’s okay just _please_ take care of my flower and he said yes it’s so pretty I _will_!” He covers his face in his hands and then buries himself into her chest. Thalia hugs him, laughing.

“That sounds very exciting for you,” she says, stroking his hair. She’s definitely not going to mention that Prince Percy will most probably not even remember the interaction a week from now. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Once Prince Percy gets to know Jason, he’ll be head over heels for him too. “But you’re going to wear yourself out in your excitement. Don’t overdo it, alright?”

Jason lifts his head. His skin is a healthy pink, his eyes bright and shining, his hair a tangled golden mess. He hasn’t stopped smiling since he entered the room, and his voice is bubbly with laughter every time he speaks.

Thalia takes his face in her hands and kisses the tip of his nose gently. “You’re a very good boy, Jason,” she says, suddenly overcome with emotion. “And Prince Percy is very, very, _very_ lucky that you like him.”

“I _do_ like him!” Jason grins widely. “I’m going to marry him one day.”

Thalia laughs. “Yes, you are.” She kisses his forehead. “Just promise me you won’t ever love anyone as much as you love yourself. No one will matter to you as much as you do. Alright? Promise?”

Jason smiles in that way children do when they don’t understand something but don’t really care enough to ask more about it either. “Promise!” he cries, holding up his palm.

“Good,” Thalia says, touching her palm to his. His palm is a fraction the size of hers, his fingers so small and soft as they fit between hers. “Do you want to sleep here today?”

Jason nods so hard, Thalia thinks his head might bob right off his shoulders. “I still have to tell you a lot!” he says excitedly as Thalia struggles to tuck him underneath the covers. “I didn’t tell you about the part where Princess Bianca kicked the ball so hard, it almost _hit_ me, and then Prince Percy started _telling her off_ – well, Princess Kym did too, but so did _he_! Isn’t that _amazing_?”

“Amazing,” Thalia agrees, shuffling down next to him under the covers. He’s still wiggling with energy but she knows he’s going to collapse in exhaustion any second. Even now, his excited babbling is interrupted by a large yawn, small pink gums and pearly teeth gleaming in the low lamplight.

Half an hour later, when they’re warm, bundled up together, and on the brink of slumber, Jason’s small warm body shifts in the circles of her arms. “Thalia?” he says, voice soft with exhaustion. 

Thalia is half-asleep already. “Hmm?” she asks, not opening her eyes.

“Do you think Prince Percy will want to marry me? I know he’s meant to but… what if he doesn’t want to?”

“Then he is as stupid as you are sweet,” Thalia says. She opens her eyes to see Jason, gazing up at her, tired and yet troubled enough to not even complain about her calling his Prince Percy stupid. She smoothes his hair back from his forehead and kisses it. “But you don’t need to worry about that. Just wait and see. One day soon, Prince Percy will be nervously chasing after you with a little pink flower in his hand, and you’ll be much harder to catch than he is.”

Her words do the trick. Jason’s sleepy smile could illuminate the night sky. “I like lilies best.”

“Lilies, then.” She kisses his cheek. “Now go to sleep, and tomorrow, when you’ve got your energy back, you can try talking to him again.”

To her relief, Jason cuddles into her drowsily, his tiny arm draped over her neck, his warm little toes pressed against her shins. “I love you, Thalia,” he mumbles.

Thalia hugs him close, kissing the top of his head one last time. “I love you too, Jason.”

They fall asleep under the gentle light of the moon, lulled by the soft whispering of the Atlantean winds, safe in the knowledge that, no matter what, they will always have each other.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you guys liked it!! it was a lil different to write but i enjoyed it a lot. yes, if this fic was written from jason's POV it would be 10k words longer and basically a long run-on sentence of his tiny baby mind going into overdrive about percy. and yes, if this fic was from percy's POV it would be 100 words and only about how bad that caterpillar tasted. sadly, thalia was right, and percy has no memory of this when he gets older lol.  
> i'm thinking of writing another fic from the time jason visits atlantis directly before he visits in Golden. let me know what you think of that!  
> also, i thought i would mention, my tumblr is the same username as here, so if you want to come talk to me there I WOULD LOVE IT!!  
> thank you for reading, and also for reading this long-ass note at the end. pls comment if you liked it!! thank you!<33


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